Description
Blossoming Apple Tree is a 1912 painting by Piet Mondrian in which the tree has almost dissolved into a web of curved dark lines and soft pale planes of grey, ochre, pink and light blue-green; only the trunk in the centre is still recognisable. The original, oil on canvas, is 78.5 cm high and 107.5 cm wide and belongs to the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague. Our painter paints it for you by hand in oil on canvas, in one of 8 landscape sizes between 40 x 30 and 196 x 137 cm or made to measure, and we send you a photograph of the finished painting before dispatch.
| Title: | Blossoming Apple Tree |
| Other titles: | Bloeiende appelboom · Blühender Apfelbaum |
| Painter: | Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) |
| Year painted: | 1912 |
| Original size: | 78.5 cm x 107.5 cm (height x width) |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Cubism, early abstraction |
| Located at: | Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague (inv. 0332113) |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, 8 sizes or made to measure |
Blossoming Apple Tree – Piet Mondrian
What does Blossoming Apple Tree show?
At first glance you see a pattern rather than a tree. Dark, curving lines run across the whole canvas, break off, cross one another and close around smaller and larger fields. Those fields are soft and pale: grey, ochre, pink and light blue-green.
Once your eye settles, the trunk comes out of the pattern, standing in the middle and branching to both sides. The crown and the space around it melt into a single web, so there is no sharp border between tree, sky and ground.
The pink and light tones give the painting a lightness that suits its title: the blossom is not shown as separate flowers but as light spread across the whole surface.
How did Mondrian get from the tree to the grid?
For several years Mondrian painted trees again and again, simplifying them by one more step each time. The series opens with The Red Tree, a bare apple tree in red and blue against an evening sky, painted between 1908 and 1910.
In 1911 came Gray Tree, where he narrowed the colours to greys, black and white and opened the branches into arcs. Blossoming Apple Tree followed a year later and goes further still: the forms are more broken up, the planes more independent, and the tree almost disappears.
These were the years when Mondrian, in Paris, was discovering the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. Out of this simplification grew his own style around 1920, Neoplasticism, with only horizontal and vertical lines and the colours red, blue and yellow.
Why is this painting so valued?
Because it shows the moment when painting tips from nature into abstraction. On the same canvas the apple tree is still there, and at the same time it is already a rhythm of lines and planes that you can enjoy without thinking of a tree at all.
For anyone who loves Mondrian it is the missing link: if you only know his right-angled grids, here you see where they came from. In the following years the curving lines of the apple tree would become straight, and the soft planes would turn into rectangles of pure colour.
It is also a beautiful painting in its own right. The colours are quiet and warm, the composition spans the full width, and the effect is calm and balanced rather than cold.
Where is the original Blossoming Apple Tree?
The original belongs to the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague, in the Netherlands, under inventory number 0332113. The canvas is 78.5 cm high and 107.5 cm wide, so roughly the same size as Gray Tree, painted the year before.
The Red Tree and Gray Tree are in the same collection, so a single museum in The Hague holds all three steps of this path. The link to the museum page about the painting is in the table above.
Blossoming Apple Tree or another Mondrian?
This is a painting for a calmer room: a living room with natural materials, a bedroom or a reading corner. Its pale tones do not demand attention, and they sit well with wood, linen and light walls.
If you would rather the tree stayed easier to recognise, choose Gray Tree, painted in grey, black and white. For a modern, minimalist home or an office the later grids suit better: the lively Broadway Boogie Woogie, or the black grid with a yellow band in Place de la Concorde.
Our Piet Mondrian page gathers the famous Mondrian paintings we paint to order, from the trees to the grids.
How does our painter paint your Blossoming Apple Tree?
We start each Blossoming Apple Tree only after you order, in oil on canvas, layer by layer. First the painter transfers the proportions from the original and lays in the main lines, so that the trunk stays in the centre and the arcs spread across the full width.
Then he lays the pale planes on in thin layers. He has to keep the grey, ochre, pink and blue-green clean, so that they do not muddy one another, because it is exactly this transparency that gives the painting its light.
The dark lines come last, drawn with a steady hand; they are not straight as in the later grids, but bend. This Mondrian reproduction carries brushmarks on its surface that a print lacks. Being an oil painting reproduction rather than ink on paper, it also shifts a little between morning and evening light.
Which size for which wall?
In short: 40 x 30 or 50 x 35 cm for a shelf or a narrow wall, 63 x 45 or 80 x 59 cm above a chest of drawers or a bed, 101 x 74 or 130 x 91 cm above a sofa, and 150 x 105 and 196 x 137 cm for a large empty wall.
We paint the apple tree in 8 landscape sizes (width x height): 40 x 30, 50 x 35, 63 x 45, 80 x 59, 101 x 74, 130 x 91, 150 x 105 and 196 x 137 cm. The closest to the original is 101 x 74 cm, which is 6.5 cm narrower and 4.5 cm lower.
As a painting for the living room above a sofa about two metres wide, 130 x 91 cm looks best. Because the tones are delicate, hang it where daylight falls on it, with its centre about 150 cm from the floor.
Can I have a different size or a frame?
Of course. The original is a good third wider than it is high; if you want different proportions, the painter adapts the composition so that the trunk stays in the centre and the web is not cut off in an awkward place. Send us the size you have in mind and we will reply with a price and a date.
You can have it rolled in a tube, stretched on a stretcher bar or ready framed. Our workshop in Slovenia does the stretching and framing, and every canvas painting we make passes through its hands.
Frames for the apple tree are picked in our 3D application, and that is all it does; showing the tree on your own wall is a service of its own. A slim light wood moulding or a plain white frame suits the pale colours of the apple tree.
When will the painting arrive, and how is it sent?
We start painting after your order, and within 15 to 45 working days the painting is ready to ship. Within Slovenia and the rest of the EU it travels without customs duties.
Before it leaves, we send you a photograph of the finished apple tree; if you would like anything changed, we correct it. The returns policy covers this order as it covers every other.
If the apple tree is a gift for someone who would rather choose the size, there is the gift voucher.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I see the original?
In the collection of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague, inventory number 0332113.
What exactly is in the painting?
An apple tree that has almost dissolved into a web of curved dark lines and pale planes; the trunk is still visible in the middle.
Is it a print or real paint?
Real paint: a hand-painted copy in oil on canvas, made with a brush for your order alone.
Which size goes above a sofa?
Above a sofa about two metres wide choose 130 x 91 cm, above a narrower one 101 x 74 cm.
Can you paint the apple tree in a size you do not list?
Yes. Tell us the width and height you want and we will send you a price and a date.
How long do painting and delivery take?
The painting is ready to ship in 15 to 45 working days; we then send it rolled, stretched or framed.
Does it suit a bedroom?
Very well. The pale pink, grey and blue-green tones are calm, so the apple tree looks lovely above a bed.
How big is the original?
It is 78.5 cm high and 107.5 cm wide. Our sizes run from 40 x 30 to 196 x 137 cm.
- Subject: an apple tree dissolved into a web of curved dark lines and pale planes of grey, ochre, pink and blue-green.
- Original: 1912, oil on canvas, 78.5 x 107.5 cm, Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
- Ours: the apple tree painted by hand in oil on canvas, in 8 landscape sizes from 40 x 30 to 196 x 137 cm or in any size you ask for.
- Worth knowing: Blossoming Apple Tree is a step between Gray Tree of 1911 and Mondrian’s later grids.
